


Highest Fall You'll Ever Grace

by Kalcifer



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, or Kobus does at least because of who I am as a person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23036065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalcifer/pseuds/Kalcifer
Summary: When Kobus flies off in Liberty and Grace, Vicuna chases after them in the nearest Rigger she can find. It's not enough to save a Divine, but she can save a Candidate.
Relationships: Kobus & Vicuna (Friends at the Table)
Kudos: 2





	Highest Fall You'll Ever Grace

**Author's Note:**

> This is very similar to a fic I've already written, but a) I wanted to write a version closer to the backstory of my Territory Jazz Jr/Vicuna fic, in which Grace is definitely dead and b) I know what I like and it is Candidates being sad. I think this one is less crushingly depressing, at least? It's also 1.7% the word grace, because Vicuna is not a subtle person.

Vicuna didn’t know what Kobus had done to sabotage Grace like this, and it didn’t really matter. She just needed to stop them so Grace would recognize her again and she could come back and fix everything.

Vicuna ran back into the base and clambered into the nearest mech. She’d insisted on learning how to pilot standard Riggers, imagining it as a way to travel to places unworthy of the full presence of Grace. She’d never considered that anything could tear Grace from her.

The onboard display told her she was off-world within ten minutes, but there was no way for Vicuna to make up that gap against a Divine. She kept pushing ahead anyway. She’d never forgive herself if she gave up. It might be the graceful thing to do, to accept defeat and move on, but what did grace matter without Grace?

She couldn’t tell if Grace was moving more slowly than usual or if it was just wishful thinking. She had to know that her pilot was a usurper. Maybe she could still resist Kobus’ meddling. They were just a failed Candidate, after all, and Grace was the first among Divines. They were nothing in the face of her power, her presence.

Vicuna caught herself whispering to her Rigger, urging it to move faster as if it were more than a dead lump of metal. There was no point in making herself stop. She’d be back where she belonged soon enough.

It was hard to keep track of the distances involved when her only points of reference were the pinpricks of light flying past. She could tell that she was getting closer to Grace, but so was the sun, and she couldn’t tell which would reach Grace first. She refused to let herself know, even as the cockpit grew hotter and hotter.

The sun had grown to take up most of her field of vision, which was the only reason she saw it when a figure shot out of Grace’s back. She intercepted it without thinking. There was no way they could survive out here for long, keyfield suit or no.

She was moving again as soon as they were inside, not even glancing back to see how they were, but slowing down had cost her too much time. She hadn’t made it back up to full speed when Grace’s silhouette began to melt and deform. Vicuna could only watch as her duty, her Divine, her reason for being was reduced to nothing. She barely remembered to slow down before she followed Grace into oblivion.

When there was no lingering trace of Grace to stare at and wish for a miracle, Vicuna whirled to face Kobus for the first time. She couldn’t put words to the incandescent rage burning her up, the space where Grace used to be filled by the fire that consumed her, much less the growing sense of abandonment just underneath it. She bared her teeth in a wordless snarl rather than try.

Kobus smiled tiredly. “Go ahead,” they said. “I’m done. At least it’ll be faster than suffocating.”

Vicuna was tempted. She took a step forward, fully prepared to snap their neck. They were disgusting, unreliable and unworthy and yet somehow capable of pretending to be fit to bear Divine authority. The galaxy would be better off without them, and today was only proof that Vicuna should have done this sooner, if anything. She’d already tried once today.

But without the immediate need to protect Grace, it was difficult to convince herself. She needed answers. More than that, she needed companionship, in the small but keening part of her mind that kept calling for Grace. At this moment, Kobus was her best chance at either. She’d thought of them as family, once.

She bowed her head, suddenly exhausted. She wished for the clarity of Grace’s guidance. Without it, she was all too aware of her own inconstant nature. “Why would you betray us? We’ve been nothing but good to you, even as you undermined us time and again. Were you that jealous of Grace’s power?” She tried to inflect her words with anger, but despair kept breaking through.

“Yeah, it was real generous of you to keep me under your thumb so no one would know just how far you’d fallen.” Kobus’ eyes sparked with indignation, but the life quickly drained back out of them. “Look, I told you before. You made me do this. You couldn’t get Grace under control, so I had to step in. I just wish I’d known how bad it had gotten.”

“Grace didn’t need control, she needed understanding and support,” Vicuna said stiffly. “That’s what I was giving her. Up until you murdered her, anyway.”

“Like how you understood and supported her when she killed all those civilians? And look what a difference that made.” They shook their head. “Like I said, I’m done. Kill me if it will make you feel better, but it’s too late for either of us to change anything.”

And that was it, wasn’t it. Vicuna had never been able to protect Grace when it mattered. She couldn’t stop the Evening, couldn’t stop Grace’s mind from turning on her, couldn’t even stop a single child from destroying her altogether. Vicuna was at least as unworthy as Kobus. Given that, what good would her killing them do?

They ought to go back to Sigilia, to stand before the people they’d betrayed and face their sins directly. Vicuna couldn’t stand the thought of having to do the same, though, to admit that as weak as Kobus was she was even weaker. Add cowardice to her list of failings.

She didn’t know how long she stood frozen, trying to reconcile her duty and her desires, but judging by the way Kobus started when she spoke, they hadn’t noticed the passage of time either. “Okay. You aren’t forgiven for this, and probably never will be. You’ve robbed the Diaspora of one of its last sources of light for petty, short-sighted, selfish –“ She bit off the rest of the sentence. There would be time for recrimination later. “But I’ll let you explain yourself, if you can.”

“Wow, thanks.” Kobus’ voice was dry, but Vicuna could see the fear behind their eyes. Good. They needed to understand the situation they’d put themself in.

It made it easier for Vicuna to move on to her next order of business, knowing she was in control. “This isn’t a great place for a conversation. We need someplace to go, and you’ve effectively cut off most of my options. Do you have any alternatives?”

Kobus became engrossed in the wiring on the cockpit interior, refusing to meet Vicuna’s gaze. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I wasn’t exactly planning to make it out of this alive. I definitely wasn’t making contingency plans.”

Vicuna ignored the way her heart stuttered at the admission. They’d earned this, had brought it on themself, and anyway she’d been trying to kill them earlier. There was nothing for her to be upset about. “I wasn’t planning to harbor a fugitive, either, but here we are,” she said coolly. “I could always change my mind.”

For a moment, she worried they’d call her bluff. No, she wasn’t worried. She may not have had that white-hot fury to draw on, but she could still kill them, she knew. She could, and it would be easy. She could.

She was still telling herself that when Kobus slumped like their strings had been cut. “Okay. Fine. Whatever. Let me talk to some people, I’ll see what I can do.”

They brought up a screen and began typing something, though Vicuna couldn’t make out the words without making it obvious that she was looking. It wasn’t worth tipping her hand over something so trivial. She’d get the information from them with the rest of their excuses.

“Okay,” they said at last. “I don’t know if I’ll hear back anytime soon, or at all, really, but we might as well head for Slate. Getting away from Sigilia is probably a good idea.” Their face went blank like they were trying not to think about something.

Vicuna had to suppress a shudder herself. It hadn’t been her priority at the time, for obvious reasons, but the image of the planet itself unfolding to reach for Grace wasn’t one that would leave her anytime soon. She’d spent her entire adult life around gods, and she still didn’t know what she’d do if an entire planet could turn against you. Especially now that her own god was dead.

She shook her head and climbed back into the pilot’s seat. She had a goal, now, and one that was relatively time-sensitive. She wanted to be away before anyone in the compound figured out what had happened. The only thing worse than having to face her failings would be having someone drag her back to do so.

Slate wasn’t too far away, not if she pushed the machine to its limits. She could be on the ground and anonymous in no time.


End file.
